Mini Flash Essay Contest: What's the Best Prank You've Ever Pulled?
Whether it's the longest lasting, most memorable (even if only to you!), or funniest prank, we want to hear all about it in a contest that's open now through Friday. Give us your best!
For the past few months — ever since Lee Gutkind and Dinty W. Moore joined us to talk about what the heck a flash essay is, really — we’ve been obsessed with short personal essays. We started working on them ourselves, had some successful contests and published some really great great pieces on our flagship publication, Narratively.
Because we’ve been enjoying the whole process so much, we thought, Why not do these on a more regular basis? Which is what we’re planning on doing going forward. Starting with one brand-new mini flash contest inspired by a favorite Narratively story that we recently revisited, “The Teenage Prank That’s Lasted 60 Years” from Clay Jennings Desmond. What we want to know is: What’s the best prank you’ve ever pulled? “Best” could mean the funniest, the one with the longest impact, the silliest, most clever, the one you can’t believe people actually fell for, the weirdest, most memorable… You get the idea!
Please share your experience in 300 words or less for a chance to have your flash piece published on Narratively and to receive a free year-long subscription to both Narratively and Narratively Academy. Submissions are due EOD this Friday, January 23, 2026, and you will hear back from us later this month or early next. Ready?
One more thing while we have you… Later this afternoon, at 1 p.m. ET, we’re hosting a live chat over at Narratively with superstar couple Seth Lorinczi and Julianna Bright about that time they took MDMA and it saved their marriage. This is based on the popular essay Seth wrote for Narratively last year, “Our Therapist Gave My Wife and Me MDMA—and It Saved Our Marriage” that has garnered a lot of curiosity since. If you missed reading or listening to it the first time around, you can find a link to do both below. We hope to see on Substack Live this afternoon armed with questions!
